Portable audio devices have evolved from large cumbersome analog tape players to highly miniaturized digital storage devices. Early portable audio devices were typically in the form of analog tape players that sequentially played musical selections (or other audio presentations). For example, a prerecorded audio tape could be purchased by the user and sequentially played in a portable tape player. However, the user had no control over the sequence of play other than to stop the playing and manually fast forward or rewind to skip over one or more selections.
With the advent of portable digital devices in the form of compact disk (CD) players, the user has additional flexibility in the selections of songs from a CD. For example, some CD players permit the user to manually enter the sequence of musical tracks that will be played rather than play the musical tracks in a predetermined sequence from start to finish. Alternatively, some CD players also include a “random” mode in which musical tracks are randomly selected. However, the CD players described above are still limited to the selection of musical tracks on a single CD. Digital musical devices have been designed to eliminate all moving parts. These devices incorporate solid state memory storage technology and utilize digital processing capabilities, such as data compression, to minimize data storage requirements. A popular musical format, known as Motion Pictures Expert Group layer 3 (MPEG-2 layer 3) defines a digital musical format that plays “near-CD quality” music from a relatively small digital file as compared with the original digital file stored on a CD. Using known data compression techniques, the data structure defined by MPEG-2 layer 3, sometimes abbreviated as MP3, is approximately one tenth the size of a comparable data file on a CD.
With the introduction of large storage capacity MP3 players, the user may record and store a large number of musical data files. However, track selection and organization of such data files cannot be readily accomplished with conventional techniques. Therefore, it can be appreciated that there is a significant need for a system and method that will allow easy organization of data files in a portable digital audio device. The present invention provides this, and other advantages, as will be apparent from the following detailed description and accompanying figures.